Alopecia in Life in General

About 7 weeks back Jessica was noticing more hair on her brush than usual. I figured it was just the stress of losing the baby this summer finally getting to her hair, since hair is on a 3 months cycle and all.

But then she went to her hairdresser who said “Yeah this is textbook alopecia you need to see a dermatologist and rheumatologist asap” And sure enough, that’s when I saw it too, very large patches of bald. Like, a lot of them. Every time I look up alopecia I’ll see examples of people with a couple small patches, but she’s got like 10 or so patches, some small but some are very large at this point. It’s getting to the point now where you can see it on the top of her head.

She goes to the dermatologist and they were just like in shock, basically saying “I never see people with it this bad on the first visit”. They order some blood tests and decide she qualifies for this brand new medication that helps with advanced alopecia. Apparently she hasn’t prescribed it yet because no one has been bad enough to need it.

Then she goes to the rheumatologist and they didn’t really say much just said “okay let’s order tests and we’ll regroup once the results are in”. It was disappointing they couldn’t help as much immediately but it makes sense they need to see the tests and know what they’re dealing with first before making any moves. They did say they suspect lupus the most but aren’t sure yet.

So far the tests have all come back negative for things like arthritis and some types of lupus, but she had so many tests ordered we won’t know the full results for a few weeks.

What we’re hoping is that whatever is causing this, it’s treatable and/or manageable, and that it explains her chronic pain that she’s had for 2 decades at this point. Fingers crossed.

I feel so bad for her she loves her hair and she didn’t deserve this especially after how awful this year has been for both of us.